On March 23, 1933, the newly elected members of the German Parliament (the Reichstag) met in the Kroll Opera House in Berlin to consider passing Hitler’s Enabling Act. It was officially called the ‘Law for Removing the Distress of the People and the Reich.’ If passed, it would effectively mean the end of democracy in Germany and establish the legal dictatorship of Adolf Hitler.

…

Just before the vote, Hitler made a speech to the Reichstag in which he pledged to use restraint.

“The government will make use of these powers only insofar as they are essential for carrying out vitally necessary measures…The number of cases in which an internal necessity exists for having recourse to such a law is in itself a limited one.” – Hitler told the Reichstag.

He also promised an end to unemployment and pledged to promote peace with France, Great Britain and the Soviet Union. But in order to do all this, Hitler said, he first needed the Enabling Act.

A two thirds majority was needed, since the law would actually alter the German constitution. Hitler needed 31 non-Nazi votes to pass it. He got those votes from the Center Party after making a false promise to restore some basic rights already taken away by decree.

However, one man arose amid the overwhelming might. Otto Wells, leader of the Social Democrats stood up and spoke quietly to Hitler.

“We German Social Democrats pledge ourselves solemnly in this historic hour to the principles of humanity and justice, of freedom and socialism. No enabling act can give you power to destroy ideas which are eternal and indestructible.”

This enraged Hitler and he jumped up to respond.

“You are no longer needed! – The star of Germany will rise and yours will sink! Your death knell has sounded!”

The vote was taken – 441 for, only 84, the Social Democrats, against. The Nazis leapt to their feet clapping, stamping and shouting, then broke into the Nazi anthem, the Hörst Wessel song.

They achieved what Hitler had wanted for years – to tear down the German Democratic Republic legally and end democracy, thus paving the way for a complete Nazi takeover of Germany.

As for ”not going too far” in making connections, well, I would add Bush 43 does not promise to promote peace. Not at all.

more to come, if slowly…;)

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UPDATE, 2:00 pm

Well, yes it is Fineman… but he is right. I really cannot tell. But i think of the Busby – Bilbray run out here in CA-50. In Randy “Duke” Cunningham’s own district. And yes a tough Republican majority district. No question. Would the Foley business have made a difference? ugh. I don’t think so.

[T]hen came the Foley Scandal. If the Democrats can’t take the Hill now, they deserve to go the way of the Whigs.

Real Americans outside the Beltway don’t look at politics the way we do here. I call Washington the Cave of the Sightless Fish: we hear everything, see nothing.

In the real world, families don’t care about abstract “investigations” into “who knew what when.” While the Beltway is trying to figure out whether Speaker Denny Hastert can save his job (he is dangling by thread), the real world is focused on children: in this case, the 16-year-old congressional pages. [snip]

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UPDATE, 3:20

Too funny. All is disarray! Viguerie (on the News Hour) says the whole of the R leadershp MUST resign or the conservatives will “not make it to the Promised Land”… I say Keep Hastert! Lock the door to the Promised Land.

Frum on Lehrer as “counterpoint” says Nein! Nein!. … Hastert must not resign. OK! Hastert must go, I say.

I am weak and dizzy!

And then there is this (they deserve each other, as do Viguerie and Frum):

LANDSCAPE: Definitely Not Paul Begala

Blog P.I. correspondent and Dem strategist Not Paul Begala is tired of “the simplistic rantings of unqualified morons” that he sees on blogs. NPB then offers a detailed response to MyDD‘s Chris Bowers latest call for the DCCC to spend more of their money in “blue districts.” NPB writes: “What pisses me off to no end about this is the macro look this moron just took at winning the House – as if you can tell by the Partisan Voter Index (supplied by Cook Political Report) how easy it is to win a district. Or how he just forgets conveniently that Red districts have leanings where it’s much easier to define a Democrat as a liberal, [feline], God-hating yuppie.”

Oh I am laughing…

*********************************************************************

UPDATE, 6:45 pm

Someone popped me this post at Rigorous Intuition, which may be an acquired taste for some… But I read the thread and found this posted as a comment quoting from the Wayne Madsen site (have not made it all the way htere yet):

Anonymous said…

Wayne Madsen Reports…October 3, 2006 — WMR has learned from informed sources in the Justice Department that the salacious e-mails from Rep. Mark Foley were leaked to ABC News by career Justice Department prosecutors and FBI agents who are incensed that Attorneys General John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales covered up the House page scandal for political reasons. The back story of Pagegate is that there was a criminal conspiracy by the top political leadership of the Justice Department to cover up the predatory activities of Foley and other GOP members of Congress since at least 2003 and, likely, as early as 2001.

Other informed sources in the nation’s capital report that Pagegate will soon implicate a number of GOP staffers in both the House and the Senate who intimidated and pressured male pages into inappropriate sexual relationships. One source confided that the staff members’ contact with pages was “more egregious” than Foley’s behavior.

The Pagegate scandal also involves senior officials of the Republican National Committee, located near the House Office Buildings, according to our Capitol Hill sources.

The bottom line is that the GOP is facing its worst political scandal since Watergate and the White House, already under assault from the revelations in Bob Woodward’s insider account of the Bush presidency and the Iraq war, has told GOP members of Congress that they are on their own as far as Pagegate damage control is concerned.

ABC at least at their site, has been indicating that ”more names to come”. Meaning more like Foley… hmmm. We shall see. Tonight’s ABC World News was all bucolic faith and family in Nickle Mines PA. Forgiveness is the order of the day. Several Amish “cousins” of the dead girls said so. Also a couple of handy mid-wives who delivered some of the girls. They strategically left off an aerial view of how close the apparently peaceful home of the shooter is to the white picket fence enclosed one room school house.

I feel the threat of religion circling around. The shooter hated god (or more accurately blamed god, there is a difference) and took this strange, mad, bloody route. The Amish love god and seem intent on their harvest. Or so they told ABC. They also act as though the killings are “clean”. I promise, 10 head shots are not clean.

If it is the answer why is it also the all consuming fire. Leave me out of it…

Like this:

Related

This is why Democrats lose…. all the time. I read this and wanted to shove it under Kos’s nose… but he wouldn’t read it anyway, he likes to get his information from the horse’s ass.

Everything about Mr. Warner speaks of work. At 52, he stands erect, with skin as weathered as cattle hide. He is frugal, does not smoke or drink coffee or liquor. His home is average, a stolid two-story ranch at the edge of a wheat field with a barn outside the door. He is hardly ever home, mostly to eat and sleep, taking a half-day off for church. His wife, Linda, complains about the isolation. Is it too much to stop home while supper’s warm? Or go to town occasionally to see a motion picture? His wife talks of throwing it in sometimes too.

“My whole life is wrapped up in this,” Mr. Warner says while baling hay. “To tell you the truth, it can get a little monotonous. I’ve had four vacations my whole life.”

Still, it is a good life, he says. “The best kind of life there is.”

No political party seems to care much about the working man’s life, Mr. Warner feels. Stick a Republican and a Democrat in a sack, shake it up, pour it out, and the same rapacious thing crawls out. Creatures from a smoke-filled room.

Mr. Warner, a Pentecostal Christian, believes in miracles. He believes in speaking in tongues. He believes that abortion is taking a life and that gay marriage is an abomination. So he voted Republican.

What crumbs do the Democrats offer him? Two men in tuxedos on the steps of City Hall with a marriage license in hand? Handouts for those who won’t work? Mr. Warner says he could be peeled away from the conservatives if the liberals would talk to him about his values:

“God. Family. Work,” he counts them on his fingertips and adds them up. “Heritage.”

Do something to stop the corporate takeover of farm country. Give his son a reason to stay and you could have his vote. “F.D.R. was the greatest president this country ever had,” Mr. Warner says. “He provided security for the farmer.”

What the fuck is wrong with this picture?
If this were Kos reading this he would see it as an affirmation of his Selfish Prick Libertarian Democrat manifesto… that is because Kos is thick and doesn’t read. Gee..we gots some VAAL-HUES here must be the NEW PRICK DEM way.

Although I am no rocket scientist it is clear that the VAAL-HUES VOAHTER is nothing but a prefabricated strawman based on lies and misinformation. Mr. VAAL-HUES VOAHTER on his farm has the fucking never to blame the ever present Welfare Queen when it is the family and corporate farms that have been sucking on the Fed Gov’t entitlement tit since the Depression. I would like to see how much the fed Gov spends on “welfare queens” as compared to “welfare hicks”?

Gee Mr. VAAL-HUES VOAHTER who believes in speaking in tongues votes for Republicans cuz dees got VAAL-HUES and there is no such thing as a gay GOP politician in the house, nor senate, nor the White House…

Then the kicker Mr. VAAL-HUES VOAHTER states emphatically that the best president evah… was Mr. Big Entitlement Hisself -FDR. Go fucking figure.

Perhaps instead trying to create a new Church of Kos which will only reinforce the ignorance and the bigotry … wouldn’t it be better just to point out the truth… oh but to find the truth you have to read…. never mind

It was my fealty to the notion of personal liberty that made me a Republican when I came of age in the 1980s. It is my continued fealty to personal liberty that makes me a Democrat today.

The case against the libertarian Republican is so easy to make that I almost feel compelled to stipulate it and move on. It is the case for the libertarian Democrat that has created much discussion and not a small amount of controversy when I first introduced the notion in what was, in reality, a throwaway blog post on Daily Kos on a slow news day in early June 2006.

But that post—as coarse, raw, and incomplete as it was—touched a surprising nerve. It generated the predictable criticism from libertarian circles (Reason and several Cato scholars piled on) as well as from conservatives who perhaps recognized their own slipping grasp of libertarian principles but were unwilling to cede any ground to a liberal. But more surprising (and unexpected) to me was the positive reaction: there’s a whole swath of Americans who are uncomfortable with Republican/conservative efforts to erode our civil liberties while intruding into our bedrooms and churches; they don’t like unaccountable corporations invading their privacy, holding undue control over their economic fortunes, and despoiling our natural surroundings; yet they also don’t appreciate the nanny state, the over-regulation of small businesses, the knee-jerk distrust of the free market, or the meddlesome intrusions into mundane personal matters.

God is dominion. Accepting authoritarianism. There is no love based christianity in this country. They are ALL the money changers.

Family is none but my own.

Work is again bend to authoritarianism. Accept the company town the company store and the company overseer. Accept that the company installs the minister. Who, with his wife, all too often just fucking spies on you.

Wht was the last?

Heritage. Oh same thing as Family. Whatever your local version of Stars and Bars is (and I agreed with Howard’s soooo incendiary comment about voters iwth the Rebel Flag decal). And it is no different out here. We are rife with hate groups in California.

Family is also authoritarian, lots of the time. “It is rare for someone to be a filial son and a respectful younger brother and yet love rebelling against his superiors,” as Confucius is supposed to have said.

He should be arrested… the latest IM have him offering alcohol to a minor… after making a joke that the kid was underage.

Maf54: then we can have a few drinks
Maf54: lol
Teen: yes yes ;-)
Maf54: your not old enough to drink
Teen: shhh…
Maf54: ok
Teen: that’s not what my ID says
Teen: lol
Maf54: ok
Teen: I probably shouldn’t be telling you that huh
Maf54: we may need to drink at my house so we don’t get busted

So he has met these kids alone at his house… of course he had sex with them

hmm between Nickel Mine or whatever the enclave in PA and this, America has a molestation infestation. Pity they cannot face what it is really all about. The family and extended family that enacts violence.

It wasn’t all that long ago when Santorum, a conservative Republican from Pennsylvania, was blaming our entire city and seemingly every resident within it for the Catholic priest pedophile scandal that was unraveling all across the country.

Those were dark days, here and elsewhere, though we were fortunate enough to have someone like Santorum shed a little bit of his moralistic light. Specifically, here’s what he wrote:

“When the culture is sick, every element in it becomes infected. While it is no excuse for this scandal, it is no surprise that Boston, a seat of academic, political, and cultural liberalism in America, lies at the center of the storm.”

A Santorum spokesman was kind enough to provide even more clarity last year, telling me, “It’s an open secret that you have Harvard University and MIT that tend to tilt to the left in terms of academic biases. I think that’s what the senator was speaking to.”

So do I. Priests rape young boys, the church hierarchy hushes it up for years, and academics and other assorted Democrats in Boston are to blame. That fact should be obvious to anyone with half a brain, which I think Santorum may have.

So, of course, I find it surprising — no, make that shocking — that the center of the storm has shifted from Boston to, of all places, Capitol Hill, and not just any part of Capitol Hill but specifically the offices of the Republican congressional leadership.

The scandal in Washington so mirrors what’s happened in Boston and other Catholic dioceses the nation over to the point of being surreal. A rank-and-file member of an organization does wrong by a minor. The hierarchy, in turn, does nothing. Now, rather than a priest, it’s a 52-year-old Republican congressman — or make that a former congressman, given Mark Foley’s resignation on Friday. Foley, by the way, has pulled the Patrick Kennedy defense, checking himself into rehab, as if everyone is supposed to applaud the courage of self-awareness.

And rather than a bunch of archbishops and cardinals, it’s the House leadership, which showed a breathtaking lack of curiosity after they learned of Foley’s e-mails to a 16-year-old page. They contend to have never learned of Foley’s exchange with a page in which he wrote: “Well, strip down and get relaxed.”
Humiliated church leaders ended up in Rome, or at least Cardinal Law did. Humiliated Republicans will probably end up in the minority party, this scandal coming at the worst possible time for a party already under siege over things like Iraq and Jack Abramoff.

So Foley is claiming he was molested by a clergyman? Just yesterday, seeing that link someone posted about the Vatican being angry at the BBC for a TV documentary they did about the former covering up its pedophila scandal, I thought that Foley should have foresaken the dryout clinic for a Catholic Seminary. Once he takes his vows, Pope Ratliner could devise a method whereby he’d vanish into the network of monasteries that served as the conduit for the SS men who ended up in Argentina

BTW, I love how MSM Beltway insiders write things like this:

“I call Washington the Cave of the Sightless Fish: we hear everything, see nothing.”

As if this somehow demonstrates that unlike their colleagues, they have X-Ray vision enabling them to see the real world while they keep their heads up their asses. Still, he observation about the Dems becoming a modern version of the Whigs is not without validity.

Proof that Markos is a Rethug. Pyrrho just wrote about Markos’s piece he did for the CATO Institute on MLW.

Kos writes

The case against the libertarian Republican is so easy to make that I almost feel compelled to stipulate it and move on. It is the case for the libertarian Democrat that has created much discussion and not a small amount of controversy when I first introduced the notion in what was, in reality, a throwaway blog post on Daily Kos on a slow news day in early June 2006.

That post he wrote in June 2006 was written like one day before the yearlykos convention, with the media that were there referencing the kos site (among others, I’m sure) in whatever reports they filed. Also around the same time was SusanG’s “greed is good” diary, followed by Hunters “and if you don’t think greed is good you are a whiny red diaper baby” diary…

I thought it interesting that that insured that, no matter the political beliefs of those who gathered under the yearlykos banner in Vegas, the view of those who visited the kos site during that time (especially if they were right wing leaning anyway) would be… “hey, these people are just like us! only they are “progressives” who are libertarian dems!”

What a scam.

Excellent article, as usual, madman. I always imagine BooMan needing a defibrillator whenever StevenD promotes you to the front page, by the way. Although I don’t think we’ll have to worry about that with the current piece, lol.

Heh… I just went by the FDL site to see what sort of insane or racist thing they’ve come up with now and discovered that the Foley scandal is all Lieberman’s fault. Who knew?

The Democratic hegemony of the 1850s collapsed because the country changed — it was in a constant process of change, with the industrial revolution in full swing and the frontier moving west at a couple hundred miles per year. Hungry for free soil to homestead, the Old Northwest bolted from its alliance with the slaveholding South and cast its lot with the Republicans and Lincoln. War came, and when the smoke cleared the political balance of power — and the country — had been completely transformed.

Can the same thing happen again? Maybe. Maybe the immigrants or the information revolution or economic distress or some other irresistable force will push the wheel around again and leave the Dems on top, or bring a new party to power — instead of leaving us with a hapless bunch of windbags who have to rely on the mother of all sex scandals to overcome their own handicaps.

But there’s a strong smell of fustiness and decay to the system — almost like the sour, medicinal odor of a nursing home. The instruments of top-down manipulation and control, and the enormous quantities of cash available to power them, may be too strong for economic change and social evolution (the godparents of political realignment) to overcome.

America isn’t a spring chicken any more. We’re getting pretty set in our ways. Soon we we may need bifocals (some of us already do). At times (like now) you can almost hear the arteries hardening, even if you’re not standing next to Dick Cheney. Political change — much less fundamental change, the kind that frees the slaves or brings malefactors of great wealth to heel — may no longer be possible in American politics.

I keep checking to see when Feingold is holding a listening session where I live, b/c I hope to have an opportunity to ask if he’ll leave the party. I think they’re done. I have this fantasy of him announcing that he’s left, and the platform filling w/ other lefty Dems joining him.

There’s lots of (self-deluding?) triumphalism in the blogosphere about the collapse of the republican leadership blah, blah, blah. However, this plutocracy isn’t going to disappear that easily I’m afraid. Though this departure has been already anticipated, you can read about it here in the Navy Times (the Navy Times is not an official US Navy publication. It is actually published by Gannett, but for a US NAvy audience).

Ike was off on a gloriously clear Tuesday morning for points east — the Mediterranean and, likely, the greater Persian Gulf region. Following on, in short order, were the other members of its carrier strike group: the destroyers Ramage and Mason and the cruiser Anzio. The attack submarine Newport News left in mid-afternoon, at about the same time Carrier Air Wing 7 was scheduled to begin flying aboard, officials said.

The latter four warships were likely “bristling with Tomahawks,” as a Sept. 21 story in The Nation reported — neglecting to note that all cruisers, destroyers and submarines deploy armed with the standard weapons.

”But of course, if the Dems lose next month, despite the GOP’s best efforts to hand them the House and quite possibly the Senate, then I guess we’ll know that’s where they’re heading. And unlike the Whigs, I don’t think they’ll be coming back.”

I don’t think that will happen either, madman. Not that I know Feingold that well, although what I do know of him I like… it’s just that I don’t have faith in any politician, no matter how leftish/progressive, whatever to really do the right thing in the atmosphere this country is under. Not just recently, all this stuff happening with Bush and the things he is allowed to do with little pushback, not only by the congress but the public, is a result of not only 9/11 but all the stuff set in place for the past few decades. And, of course, not just by the right wing think tanks and all that… Dems had their part too.

I think the right idea is the one you have in your recent article… go local and build from there, outside the party. I think that, eventually… and if we even have time left to do it, that will not only move the Dems lefter again, but help build a vibrant, progressive culture on the ground that could be the backbone that leftish politicians need.

marisacat, yes… that’s when a bunch of right wing “Dems’ came out of the woodwork too.. with that whole coordination thing. I remember reading one guy who wanted to argue that he was “middle class”, making $250,000 a year. It was a hardship in his area, the bay area, you see… especially considering he had to spend over $1000 (or so) a week, just for after school activities for his kids!

To their credit, though, even the right wingers on kos didn’t buy that one, lol.

LOL I remember once wandering into a sweet, so sweet little diary… everyone a flutter for Clark and Reagan. And Mike Pridmore even claimed Nixon was “charming”. sometime in the spring or summer of ’04.

They don’t seem able to win elections other than Bill at 43%.

I’d say they were gasping for breath as they arrived on the scene. And the Repbulicans have given them bits of oxygen as needed. They were useful.

Another war tho, or a terror attack and they won’t be needed for even a paper thin illusion.

The Cato institute is nothing more than a quasi-academic think-tank which acts as a mouthpiece for the globalism, corporatism, and neoliberalism of its corporate and conservative funders.

The purpose of the Cato Institute is to provide propaganda and soundbites for conservative and libertarian politicians and journalists that is conveniently free of reference to funders such as tobacco, fossil fuel, investment, media, medical, and other regulated industries.

But hey, if the Democratic party want to be lemmings and continue to listen to Kos, then they desire the consequences for going over the cliff.

I keep checking to see when Feingold is holding a listening session where I live, b/c I hope to have an opportunity to ask if he’ll leave the party. I think they’re done. I have this fantasy of him announcing that he’s left, and the platform filling w/ other lefty Dems joining him.

Sadly, I don’t think it will happen.

Nor I. Plus, what you’d need is what street-level activists sometimes call “chaffing.” That is, ten people at a demo who get arrested disappear quickly. Ten thousand people at a demo who get arrested clog the system and frighten its uniformed enforcers. IOW, Feingold leaving by himself would invite the same treatment that Nader’s “betrayal” did in 2000. If Feingold and a third of his colleagues left together, that would be a whole ‘nother thing.

If Feingold leaves, he will certainly “destroy his good name,” but if he sticks around and jumps through the required hoops needed to please the Big Daddies before he can be the candidate, he will still destroy everything that made people like him in the first place.

Thanks for linking to the Silber piece. It looks like we were perusing the same “History Place” website Sunday morning before he posted his piece and I posted mine. The parallels, especially between democratically elected legislatures voting away democracy, are there for all to see.

Another parallel is the way that many people tried hard to ignore the need to consider emigration as an option. This website quotes a Jewish newspaper early on in Hitler’s regime:

Germany remains Germany. No one can deprive us of our homeland and fatherland.

The Reich Representation of Jews, a federation of Jewish groups created to cope with the Nazis, was a failure in terms of coping with the threat:

Some scholars regard the organization’s work as an expression of the will to preserve and foster the authentic character and basic values of German Jewry even under the totalitarian and racist regime. As such, they consider its activities “spiritual resistance.” For others, however, precisely these aims were illusions and, indeed, a tragic error, which may perhaps have prevented sufficient emphasis from being placed on emigration efforts that could have saved lives..

American organizations representing target groups in this country are behaving in a similar fashion, though I’d attribute it more to “business as usual” than “spiritual resistance.”

Yes I have read of Jews who were so assimilated, so secular in pre war Germany they could not conceive that their own country would turn on them.

I wonder the reaction in Stabenow’s Michigan amongst MEers at her vote for Bush’s regime of torture.

Time to pay attention.

My godmother comes from SW Germany in the Rhine Phalz region. A traditional market town on the old road from Paris to Rome. And of course it had no Jews, not in post war W Germany. In the 60s a Jewish man moved to town, bought a prominent property on the main sq, a corner property. And opened a drinking place, served food. The facade of the building had deeply recessed windows on the ground floor and there was some system of changing the color of the lights in the windows.

LOL… The townspeople eventually figured out he was running a quiet (more or less) brothel on the second floor. Servicing the US army at the big bases in the SW. And the changing colors indicated some internal system of what was available….

The people of Northern Virginia have had more than enough of Republican officials who have endorsed George Allen (R) for the U.S. Senate. Virginia Democrats must go to the polls in November to spare the commonwealth from a U.S. senator who refuses to set a pull-out date for U.S. troops in Iraq, wants to restrict affirmative action, does not support full equality for women, takes policy positions that promote sexual harassment, backs a Republican plan on tough CIA interrogation methods and has been praised by Ronald Reagan.

The former first lady and possible 2008 Democratic presidential contender brushed aside a magazine article Webb wrote in 1979 that said women can’t lead men in battle and decrying their admission to military academies.

Clinton’s appearance comes as Webb battles claims from Republican incumbent George Allen that Webb has demeaned women. An Allen campaign ad features female U.S. Naval Academy graduates accusing Webb of creating hostility toward them when they were midshipmen in the early 1980s.

“That was 30 years ago and I’ve analyzed what Jim Webb has done. He’s opened up positions–thousands of positions–to women that have not been available,” the New York senator told reporters before a fundraising luncheon for Webb.

Yunno watching these horrific scenes coming out of PA… I was thinking that there was a time circa “The Witness” when I thought the Amish where extreme religious fundamentalists. Today, in comparison to the corporate extremist fundamentalists wackos… they seem the sanest religion in the US.

They don’t try and change their neighbors and gov’t to look just like them.

They live in PEACE and harmony with others and nature

They are PACIFIST not “Christian Soldiers”

Farwell, Dobson and the rest of that scummy ilk couldn’t hold a candle to these people

they appear veyr detached from horrific killings right in the bosom of their community.

That is exactly why I respect them. I do not doubt that they are hurting … in private. But in the US we are conditioned to relatiate and call for immediate revenge. IMO this shows the strength of their faith… they are truly PACIFIST… I believe that Americans are just not accustomed to people who do not issue Fatwas or Patwas at every slight.

Also what I like about them is that they give all children one year to decide if they want to remain in the community and in that year they can do anything that they want (kinda get it out of their system). They also believe in ADULT baptism based on a conscietious ADULT decision… not forced upon a child by a parent.

I have been noticing this interesting trend in the BBB rhetoric and MB jsut did it again.

This morning, in Dumping Denny Won’t Do It, Meyerson takes a dig at Congressman Ray LaHood’s suggestion that the congressional page system be abolished, and goes on to deliver another example for why many of us like him so much

Who the fuck is us… is this like the royal “we”. Kos, Bowers and Stoller do this.

I know it is easy for beltway insiders to think of us bloggers living in the provinces as rubes who don’t understand how targeting works, but I assure you that is not the case

Are they intentionally trying to “talk redneck” or sumptin…?

It is becoming farcical like the scene in Airplane “I speak jive”. Are they trying to tone down their “elitist” edges…

It always reminds me of Richard Pryor’s definition of Justice… Just Us

well I would have greater faith in this mouthing of pacifism if they sat out elections – in a clearly war mongering nation. But Rove targetted Old Order Amish, and in fact specifically in Lancaster Co. He upped the Amish vote for Bush – over 2000..

I read a quote post election from an Amish who said he voted for the first time in 30 years as “Bush seemed to have our Christian values”.

ALL of that stuff just does not work for me.

I think it is a free labor society. Some believe yes, but it mostly is patriarchy and free labor.

If Casey is elected will he go and talk them into voting for a “peaceful Democratic agenda”
NO

I was just reading another hit piece sent by Hilliary’s emissariesto STOP the DNC outreach in so called “red areas”…. so no I do not blame the Amish for voting for Bush…why should they vote for Democrats? They have not distingushed themselves from the GOP nor have they shown up in their areas.

Recently I met a 21 year old African American Girl from Massachusetts who told me thru her dreadlocks that she was for Bush…because of his VAAL-YOOZ… no lie.

Melman has spent 2 solid years talking any and every blackface he could find … when these fucking bloggers could even be bothered to invite one African American to a lunch in Harlem with “the first Black Pressident”.

This is why they are freaking about this latest sex scandal because with the war in dissarray their VAAL-YOOZ is all they got left.

and if the GOP does pull out a win the Dems will be the first on the bandwagon saying it was because of their VAAL-YOOZ (like Pelosi did the day after Kerry’s defeat) ….not because Rahm abd Schumer had their heads up Hilliary’s ass for two years and spent millions of dollars in Dem primary elections to weed out people that Hilliary and Bill didn’t like (real democrats)…. then Kos will go on another book tour tout the religion of Selfish Prick Liberatiranism… and the entire party will move one step closer to the right.

I destroyed the VAAL-YOOZ arguement by asking her if she knew anyone who had an abortion “YEAH lots” then I asked her if she thought they should go to jail “OH NO”… I asked what did she think would happen to these girls if they had kept the babies “POVERTY”… then I made it clear that I had no business trying to change her beliefs but perhaps there was a more proactive way she could act on her beliefs besides voting GOP. She told me of a friend of hers who had had five abortions… I pointed out that obviously there was a missing link in safe sex and contraceptives perhaps she could become a birth control advocate… she agreed wholeheartedly.

As for same sex marriage… I asked her if she really wanted laws that would go around sniffing peoples panties…. NO And what hell business what is of hers anyway… “None”. Also that this was a slippery slope that once you outlaw bigotry there is no telling that these same partners will bring back segration and all the wonderful jim crow laws… “Oh”

And for the coup de grace I asked why in the hell would she want to be in league with people who are presently disenfranchising the African American voter???? To be a member of the GOP is to be racist.

That was all it took… common sense. None of this Self Prick Libertarian non sense. Perhaps I should write a book… but then it is not what Hill and Bill want to hear…

I would say that the majority of those who are voting for the GOP because of their VAAL-YOOZ at least 80% can be turn if they were presented with a strong alternative dialogue and that is just the reason why Democrats will loose…. because instead of creating an alternative dialogue… they became the “me too” party and decided to pushed out of the tent into the cold family members that they deemed unacceptable to the new comers in the Big Tent.

Many days, DT, that kind of one-on-one conversation is THE most effective form of political activism any of us have oat our disposal.

Y’all may have seen me post this before (if so, hope you’ll forgive), but it’s one of my favorite Robin Blaser passages on the problem of Gawd:

“I don’t know anything about God but what the human record tells
me—in whatever languages I can muster—or by turning to
translators—or the centuries—of that blasphemy which defines god’s
nature by our own hatred and prayers for vengeance and dominance—
that he (lower case and questionable pronoun) would destroy by a
hideous disease one lover of another or by war, a nation for what
uprightness and economic hide-and-seek—and he (lower case and
questionable pronoun) is on the side of the always-ignorance of politics
in which we trust—the polis is at the ‘bottom of the sea,’ as Hannah
Arendt noticed—and he (lower case and interrogated pronoun) walks
among the manipulated incompetences of public thought”

So.

Former University of Cincinnati police officer Ray Tensing has been released on a $1 million bail after pleading not guilty to the murder of Sam DuBose. Tensing, who is white, fatally shot the 43-year-old African-American man on July 19 after stopping him for not having a front license plate. Two additional officers, Phillip Kidd and David Lindenschmidt, hav […]

As the Senate prepares to vote to defund Planned Parenthood, we look at the Center for Medical Progress, the anti-choice group behind the attacks on Planned Parenthood. The group was founded by David Daleiden who is seen in the undercover sting videos using a fictional name. We speak to RH Reality Check's Sharona Coutts, who wrote the piece, "Exclu […]

The Senate is planning to vote as soon as Monday to strip Planned Parenthood of $500 million in federal funding. The vote comes as Planned Parenthood is coming under fire from anti-choice activists after the release of a series of undercover sting videos were published online. The heavily edited videos suggest the organization profits from supplying aborted […]

In Portland, Oregon, law enforcement officers have removed Greenpeace activists who spent 40 hours suspended from the St. Johns Bridge in order to block an icebreaking ship commissioned by oil giant Shell from leaving for the Arctic. Hundreds of activists have been gathering on the bridge and in kayaks since Tuesday night in efforts to stop Shell's plan […]

On Reality Asserts Itself, Mr. Drake, a former Senior Executive at the National Security Agency, says he was targeted by the NSA because he exposed that the agency had intel that could have prevented the 9/11 attacks and because he blew the whistle on a massive secret surveillance program aimed at Americans

James K. Gailbraith says, IMF is demanding a substantial reduction of the Greek debt to participate in any new deal and meanwhile German law makers are refusing to approve a new bail-out without the IMF

James K. Galbraith a member of the working group advising the former finance minister Varoufakis on 'Plan B' says there were great impositions imposed on the Greek government including certain procedures that removed control from the government and placed them in the hands of creditor institutions

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House said it will launch the first ever rule on Monday to cut carbon emissions from power plants, a plan that opponents in the coal industry and their political allies will fight in the courts.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Donald Trump, the man to beat in this week's first televised Republican presidential debate, said on Sunday he does not plan to attack his rivals and downplayed expectations for his performance, saying "I'm not a debater."

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. backers of the Iran nuclear deal are increasingly confident of enough Democratic support to ensure it survives review by Congress, despite fierce opposition by majority Republicans and a massive lobbying drive.

Media

from Howl

I'm with you in Rockland
where we wake up electrified out of the coma
by our own souls' airplanes roaring over the
roof they've come to drop angelic bombs the
hospital illuminates itself imaginary walls collapse
O skinny legions run outside O starry
spangled shock of mercy the eternal war is
here O victory forget your underwear we're free
I'm with you in Rockland
in my dreams you walk dripping from a sea-
journey on the highway across America in tears
to the door of my cottage in the Western night

October 7 1955

"a remarkable collection of angelson one stage reading their poetry"
"I think Allen Ginsberg standing up there reading - putting himself on the line - was one of the two bravest things I've ever seen. Remember, it was '55. People had crew cuts, and they looked at you like you were misplaced cannon fodder. The country was being run by Luce publications. It was a dangerous, cold, ugly time, and it was scary. . .
In all our memories no one had been so outspoken in poetry before. We had gone beyond a point of no return. None of us wanted to go back to the grey, chill, militaristic silence, to the intellectual void - to the land without poetry - to the spiritual drabness. We wanted to make it new and we wanted to invent it and the process of it as we went into it. We wanted voice and we wanted vision."
-Michael McClure

Democrats…

Same as goddam fucking forever.
Over and over, in election year after election year, GE and MidTerms both… the Dems start to purr and preen, they stretch luxuriously - at just being TOLD they are going to win [...]
It never fails.
... in February of 2002, looking over the already joyless congressional stragglers willing to be drafted for duty… they barely dreamed, yet, it was even possible (Howard, a different person then, had not arrived to say it could be done)… but one thing was clear, we could not rely on the party to swing it. Could not. You could smell it, they would screw the deal. And I am not talking about Howard and primary issues here. By the end, that was a passing political story. Chuck it on the heap.
[...]
Upshot? The Republicans make it thru. They hold on.